Strove to find a way to punch people in the face by using the Internet.

4/27/2004

DIARY OF INDIGNITIESStraights Versus the Gays! Straights Versus the Gays!I’ve never been one for nostalgia. But sometimes — when reclining on my deathbed, for example — I like to look back and reflect on life, this strange journey we all share... Perhaps even try to make sense of it all, or compact three and a half decades of hard-won experience into some golden nugget of wisdom I can pass on to loved ones... Invariably, when these philosophical moments strike, I return to this one thought more than any other:

For a supposedly straight guy, I sure have spent a lot of time in gay bars.

And that’s it! That’s the entry this week. "For a supposedly straight guy, I sure have spent a lot of time in gay bars." Hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for stopping by.

…Okay, I reckon leaving this where it is will only trigger more of the already all too-common aspersions as to my sexuality (it was just one buttplug, for fuck’s sake, and I couldn’t even feel the vibration), so I guess I’ll elaborate.

First of all, I should point out that I was raised by a gay person. Well, a supposedly gay person. My mom came out of the closet as a lesbian when I was 9 or 10, you see, but in a way that didn’t really say, "I’m finally comfortable enough to be who I really am," as much as, "I’m fucking nuts, and please pay attention to me." This is a subject for another entry (as well as an estimated $750,000 worth of therapy sessions and Paxil), but I bring it up to illustrate that I was brought up around lots of openly gay people, and was lucky enough to view this sort of thing as perfectly normal from a fairly young age.

Yes, despite lingering negative stereotypes, I’d like to go ahead and take this chance to inform any bigots, ‘phobes or doubters reading this that the gay race (or whatever) is entirely normal — just as boring, petty, stupid, small-minded, reactionary, dull, fucked-up and square as everyone else, for the most part. However, as a teenager I did notice one important difference between the worlds of gay and straight: The former would let me into their bars.

I liked gay bars. They often featured cheap drinks, and good music for dancing. Nobody ever called me a fag there. There were always a handful of open-minded straight chicks, and less competition for their attention. And the sights… Oh, the magical sights I did see... Like the midget female impersonator singing "Over the Rainbow." Or the time (this still brings tears of joy to my eyes) some stray fratboy shoved a girl and called Jimbo the burly, chivalrous bartender a fag, prompting Jimbo to go after him with a baseball bat while hollering, "I may be a faggot, but I’m a 250-pound redneck faggot with a baseball bat, and you will not put your hands on a woman in my presence!" Or the time I saw Mike Watt’s ass (scroll down to 12/1/2003). Cherished memories all.

I’ve also hooked up with what I’m reasonably sure were attractive girls at gay bars pretty often, for me anyway. One time, while still in high school, I was drunk and leaning against the dumpster in the parking lot of an infamous bar on the outskirts of town called My Friend’s Place and making out with a totally hot punk-rock college chick. She was super nice, had bought me a bunch of drinks and even kept making out with me after I turned and ralphed into the dumpster a couple of times, causing one patron walking by to clap his hands and gleefully dub us "Gainesville’s version of Sid and Nancy."

Of course, it wasn’t all dumpsters and ralph and baseball bats. There were a couple of rough patches, too, which is to be expected even when friendly cultures mix. For example, one time some gay friends told a pimp-flavored male stripper named Sweet Dick Willy it was my birthday. Sat just a little too close to the stage that time…

Or there was the incident involving an amorous Rosie Greer lookalike cornering me in the bathroom (Me: "Sorry dude, I’m straight." Him: "Hey, that’s cool — I’m straight too. I just like to suck a little white dick every now and then." Me: "AAAAAAAGGGHHH!!! …Hey, wait a minute. My dick’s not little."). And then there was the time just a few years ago when I turned my back on my stylish, witty (but still stereotype-refuting, mind you) queer friends and became a gaybasher.

It all started with a friend I’ll call Kristy Moss (because that’s her name) somehow convincing me (I think she appealed to my love of booze after unfairly clouding my mind with her abnormally large bosoms) to go drinking and dancing with her at a local gay bar. We arrived early and sat at the bar for a few hours, drinking many crisp, refreshing gin 'n' tonics.

At some point her then-boyfriend Henry showed up, and we made our way downstairs for dancing. Henry wasn’t as confident in his abilities as I was (and by that I mean "not as drunk") and sat off to the side while Kristy and I tested the goodwill of the assembled gays by taking up valuable space on the dance floor. At one point, a girl Henry was friends with stopped by to chat and flirt with him, sending the jealous Kristy and her propensity for heightened emotional states storming out of the club in a huff. I volunteered to go after her.

We spent a few minutes arguing near the club’s entrance, a deck at the top of a single flight of stairs, while assorted patrons snickered at us, assuming since we had been there together all night that we were the feuding couple. "Ha ha, straight people," they said, "So foolish with your silly old-fashioned mores and relationship stuff. After Point Six of the Gay Agenda is implemented, you all will be rounded up and exposed to the rays of the Homotron, which will…" Er, did I just say something about the Gay Agenda? Shit, I promised to keep that a secret. Alright, just pretend you never heard that.

Anyway, Henry eventually walked up. Almost immediately, a middle-aged guy sitting on the deck with his arm around some dude that looked 25 years younger than him pipes up with some sass like, "You need to tell your friends that they should…"

Henry cuts him off: "Hey, mind your own business, alright?"

"Don’t tell me to mind my business when you need to…"

"Why don’t you shut the fuck up and make out with your little boyfriend, there?" Henry says.

That last line came out sounding a lot more homophobic than it was meant. All conversation had stopped, and Kristy and I quit arguing. Everybody was staring at Henry, and nobody looked real happy.

Sensing this, Henry tried to defuse the situation. "Aw, c’mon, I didn’t mean it like that," he said. "Here, I’ll show you — let me give you a little kiss." Everyone stiffened up as Henry leaned toward the guy with his lips puckered. Springing up, the guy swung a quick roundhouse that caught Henry off-balance, sending him sprawling. And without even thinking about it I threw a right cross that smashed right into the poor sap’s nose, breaking it with an audible crack and a generous splatter of blood.

After the punch, there was a brief pause before the place went apeshit… Everyone started screaming and jumping up and down all at once. Total hysteria. Kristy burst into tears: "They’re fighting about MEEEEEEEEE!!!" The guy with the broken face picked himself up and ran down the stairs. A black drag queen who had a good two inches (of height, asshole) and about 50 pounds of muscle on me started screaming, "STRAIGHTS VERSUS THE GAYS! STRAIGHTS VERSUS THE GAYS!"

I stood there for a few seconds, an oasis of calm in a splendidly colorful storm, looking at my bloody fist and thinking, "Goddamn. I’m badass." Then I heard someone scream something about calling the cops. Though I didn’t feel like I had done anything wrong, I really didn’t want to tempt fate and chance getting my ass beat by that big drag queen, so I split and hot-footed it down to the parking lot.

I stood alone in darkness of the lot for a few minutes, watching the mayhem. Kristy, still crying, tried to explain things to a group of patrons while Henry apologized to everyone. People raced around, running in and out of the club. The drag queen leaned over the railing of the deck, pointing at me and screaming, "THERE HE IS! THERE HE IS!" I was wondering if I should wait for my friends or just get the hell out of there when someone walked up behind me. It was the guy I hit. I raised my fists.

"No, no," he said. "I’ve learned my lesson. I deserved it." Blood was pouring out of his face.

"I’m glad you did it," he said. "I shouldn’t have hit your friend. And I should’ve minded my own business."

"Well, frankly, I agree with you," I said. "But you’re bleeding pretty bad. Are you gonna be alright? Can I give you a hand or anything?"

He made a few noncommittal protests while I looked around on the ground, finally scrounging up a dirty napkin. I handed it to him, and he held it to his nose. We stood there quietly for a minute or two, staring up at the chaos at the entrance to the bar. I looked over at him, and he looked down at the blood all over his shirt and shrugged.

4/18/2004

DIARY OF INDIGNITIESMeghan's BirthdayToday we had a cookout to celebrate Meghan's birthday. She's a spry, sprightly — some say elfin — 54 years old.

They got her a cake...

...and a pinata.

Yep, a cookout full of boozed-up, surly punk rockers playing a game that involves trying to bust something open with a stick while blindfolded. What could go wrong?

As is the tradition in her country, Meghan rubs a live dog with a mixture of meat tenderizer and spicy marinade before we stuff it into the pinata.

Jason enjoys the sweet tones of Meghan's fiddle.

Hmmm... For some reason, this reminds me of that summer I spent in New Zealand.

Jason displays his novel new gadget, the beermit. It's a mit for beer. So you don't, ummm... Drop it? I guess?

Jason loading the beermit. We live in an age of technological marvels.

Seems to be working.

Now we're ready for the mayhem! Dave blindfolds Meghan. Creepily enough, we all kind of got the feeling they had done this before. I, for one, wasn't really ready to take my relationship with them to this level of intimacy, but whatever.

Getting the blindfold nice and tight while Sten, in the background, comforts a frightened child.

4/15/2004

DIARY OF INDIGNITIESAround the NeighborhoodI didn't have anything to do with either one of these, I swear. Really.

"Oh look, wet cement. Here's my chance to leave my mark on the world, send a message to future generations and ensure a small piece of the uniqueness that is me lives on for posterity. Let's see... 'I... LIKE... SHEEP...' There, mission accomplished!"

You know, I've been saying this for years. But they all laughed at me, and told me I was mad... Yes, mad. Well. I don't seem mad to you now, do I, motherfuckers? Eh? Do I?! Ah hah hah hah haaaaaah!! AH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAAAAH HAAAA!!!!!

4/11/2004

4/01/2004

DIARY OF INDIGNITIESThe Assbreak of PsoriasisIn addition to guilt, shame, a generally comical appearance, low I.Q. scores, a receding hairline, a grumpy temperament, chronic flatulence, failing eyesight, a third nipple and a propensity for boozy mayhem, my parents have bequeathed a gift to me through the magic of genetics  a symbol of their parenting skills made flesh, if you will. Yes, match two sets of malformed chromosomes under the right conditions and nine months later you get a kid who’s going to go through life afflicted with fucking psoriasis.

Fucking psoriasis? It’s a rash. A red and crusty rash. A chronic, persistent rash for which there is no cure… It’s neither contagious nor fatal; in fact, it’s superficial by nature. But to a certain extent it can determine personality and outlook, if not destiny. Think of it as the icing on a cake; a cake made of crippled emotions. Yup, that sounds about right. The red, crusty, cracked and bleeding icing on a rotten cake made of crippled emotions. That was baked by, ummm… Monsters! Monsters and Nazis. You don’t want a slice of this dry, scabby cake, my friend. No way.

Its cause? Well, those affected usually suffer from having to carry around a huge and constantly erect, diamond-hard penis. The stress of wielding such mighty genitalia causes the immune system to… No, I don’t know what the damn cause is, other than the lack of a law preventing booze and sick, bestial urges from causing two people who should be kept apart by forcing them to live in deep, separate wells to inexplicably meet, decide they like each other and copulate. Shit, from what I’ve heard, my dad accidentally brushed his teeth with some of my mom’s psoriasis cream after the first night they spent together. What is it you need, Pop, God to throw up a neon sign reading THAT WAS AN OMEN. AN OMEN OF ILL TIDINGS. RUN! GET OUT NOW!

Actually, while faulty DNA is its origin, the actual psoriasis rash is the result of a profound deficiency in tiny, nimble teenage Asian girls frolicking around in sexy anime costumes. Some dubious group of scam-artists calling itself the National Psoriasis Foundation says the rash is caused by a wonky immune-system response that makes the body generate skin cells faster than it can shed them, but, uh... Fuck those guys.

The delightful affliction can show up pretty much anywhere, but prefers to make its appearance on the scalp and various stretchy extensor surfaces of the body, such as the knees and elbows. Of course, it wouldn’t be fulfilling the complete scope of its rashly duties if it didn’t declare a little manifest destiny on other, sometimes more sensitive body parts. Hence the title of this entry.

You know, the four people reading this dumb site have all at one time or another commented in amazement on the fact that I hold nothing back in the Diary of Indignities. Well, guess what? There are, in fact, indignities I do hold back, both for society’s sake (and by that I mean “restraining order”) and because, unless your name is H.P. Lovecraft, they resist description. Like the indignity of getting a heaping dose of psoriasis lodged in your ass-crack.

Now, as I’ve mentioned before, youthful experimentation aside I monkey around with the pooper as little as possible. An embarrassed post-crap dab or two with some toilet paper to comply with the rules of society (and by that I mean “the Eighth Judicial Circuit Court in and for Alachua County, Florida”) and I’m done with the whole gizmo. But there are a surprising number of sensitive nerve endings living it up in your ass-crack. For the most part they spend their time enjoying the warmth and doing their jobs, sensing the proximity of the opposite ass-cheek or whatever, but get ‘em all riled up on psoriasis and shift in your chair wrong and I swear by all that is fucking right and proper it feels like you just got zapped in the shitter by a lightning bolt made out of mentholated scorpions.

Don’t even get me started on when the skin gets so dry and cracked it starts bleeding. Just don’t. Because I will break down and start sobbing. Despite evidence to the contrary, I really do try and keep as much of my blood as possible inside my skin, no matter the point of origin. But losing precious ass-blood… Well, frankly, it’s extra disconcerting.

Dry, cracked and bleeding skin is no good on your ding-dong either. You can quote me on that: no good. Not only does having a flaky, crimson rash on your weiner put a crimp in the ol’ social life, but experiencing this problem can also make it difficult to hit your regular masturbation quota. And if your goal is, like mine, to run off a batch by hand anywhere from four to 73 times a day, well… Don’t get thrifty on the lube, my friend. Turns out they don’t make ding-dong-shaped bandages, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Okay, let’s see… Libeling my parents, check… Ass-blood, check… Rash-dick, check… What else sucks about psoriasis? Getting it on your face and having people treat you like you picked up some new atomic kind of AIDS that’s only caught by molesting animal corpses; that sucks. Spending money on dermatologists and creams and shit and just having to waste time on maintenance so people don’t scream and shoot you in the face with Lysol when you leave the house; that sucks. Dropping 500 clams on the wrong kind of medicine because some quack from a walk-in clinic thought you had a skin fungus; that sucks. Oh, and the cockamamie home-brewed hippie remedies everyone tries to foist on you. They suck as well.

Just in case any hippies end up here by accident, I’d like to say a few things about your sham alternative-medicine hokum: Herbs don’t cure shit. Herbs go in quiche, yes. They are not medicine. Sure, cavemen used herbs to try and cure shit, but that was before we had science and stuff. Your commie, repellant herbs and garnishes might’ve been in common medicinal use for 2000 years or whatever, but the average lifespan for people living during those 2000 years was, like, 15. I mean, I have nothing against the Indians, and think them getting shafted so much and stuff sucks, but they tried to cure shit with Echinacea… And, ah… Well… They died. I’m sorry, and I’m not happy about it, but it’s true.

I’ve had a few pinkos suggest that I might try fasting to clear up the occasional out-of-control patch. “It’ll cleanse your body of the toxins,” they say in that dreamy, annoying self-righteous hippie voice they affect whenever passing on some spurious wisdom-of-the-ancients type bullhonky. Well, you fucking hippies, listen up: your phantom toxins aren’t the problem. It’s that overactive skin-cell doohickey or whatever. But fasting could be a solution to one of my problems, at least. All hippies reading this please start a program of total abstinence from all food and water for… Oh, I reckon 30 days ought to be sufficient to totally cleanse your mind, body and spirit of all those nasty toxins. There, problem solved! And also please give me all of your cool stuff, since you hate capitalism and private property and America so goddamn much.

Mmm, on second thought you can keep your dirty hippie stuff. I don’t want it. I’d hate private property too if all my private property was, like, filthy tie-dyes and Phish bootlegs. Get a job, buy some cool stuff and see how you feel about private property then, Tofu Joe.

Alright, my work here is done. If anyone needs me I’ll be over in the corner, scratching my elbows.